Dynamic Lighting in Daytime Map?

My players are planning a nighttime raid on a settlement, so I figured setting up dynamic lighting would be useful. The problem is, while it's easy to set up DL on a restricted, specific area, it seems strange applying it to a big open area. (A fort in the middle of a desert in the old west) Can I get some help giving a good "feeling" to this sort of scenario? At night, obviously I'll enforce cramped line of sight and lightsource-based cover, but what if they decide to strike in the morning or daytime? How should I cover this? I might be coming off as confusing, so I'll try to keep to simple explaining: Right now, it's decided on night, so I enabled fog of war, drew out the walls using Dynamic Lighting, and gave each player a 10-foot personal lightsource, right? The mansion will have lights inside, so I plan on making them bright enough to cover most of the windows with a good amount of shine. If i'm guessing correct, the players will see the beams of light from the mansion, but little else, right? I'll add outdoor lighting after figuring this out. On the flipside, how do I manage a wide open area where the sun beats down on everything via Dynamic Lighting? Should I put a lightsource outside based on the sun's general position and shine it so high that the entire area is lit up? Any commentary or suggestions are welcome. Except the suggestion to upgrade to Mentor status to make this feasible, of course Those I'll take grudgingly :y

So, there was a thread a while back, I think in the mentor forum, talking about these kinds of things. (So there's your plug for getting a mentor subscription! =D ) Here's some strategies you can use: Dead of Night: Give them their personal light sources, add light sources in the interior as makes sense, and viola! Morning: Set up light sources that have some very large radius, say 1000, but are immediately dim. Put them in enough places to illuminate everything. probably one for each corner of the map, and perhaps some for interior outdoor spaces such as between buildings. This will give the illusion of dim lighting (well, it will actually be dim, so no illusion I suppose!). High Noon: Take those light sources from 2) and take the dim off. Moon Lit Night: Make the radius of their personal light sources about 4 times larger, but with dim at the same point. They still get the same level of bright light, but they get an enhanced dim radius that the moonlight lets them see into. Hope that helps!

i was fiddling with the lighting using ceiling lights and realized setting the dim to 0 gave that immediate dimness which was PERFECT for when light beams come into a room but don't fully illuminate Those are excellent strategies and I'm more than likely going to be using 'em; I was a bit confused to how to give that "hardly discernable" kind of feeling and your tip on moon lighting is perfect. Thanks!

Happy to help! You should post some picture back here with what you ended up doing!

Might not know if it's worth making a separate thread about this or not, but I think I'm getting an issue with lighting specifically in the main area of the building. The lighting works wonderfully up until I move a token into the main lobby area. on GM view, it works perfectly; but when I swap to Player View to test out what they'll be seeing, I get this weird problem where the Dynamic Lighting box walls have light inside them, but the area they wall up is pitch black. The cones of light come out of windows and doorways just fine, but for some reason, the specific main area stays blacked out when I move tokens into it. I see light solidly illuminating the inner parts of the wall boundaries, but nothing on the actual area. I thought it was maybe conflicting light sources so I reduced it to just one single light, but the problem is still there. Is this a common problem?

i put my light source (sun/moon) very large and park it on the D.L. level, allows me to dash to the D.L. layer and move it.,gives interestring shadows.

Alright, so here's the map, right? And here's how it looks according to CTRL-L on the character in the room: Looks fine, right? 'cept, when I swap to Player View to check it out, I get this: I have my username (Alex M) set to view as the character properly. It's a copy of a player character, yes, but I don't think that'd be the issue. I really have no clue why it'd be jerking around like this. Can anyone give some insight?

lmfao nevermind, i was stupid enough to seriously not turn off fog of war

Glad you sorted it out. Your map looks pretty cool! Some people (me included) find it useful to move the GM Opacity slider up quite a bit when dealing with dynamic lights so that the transition from dim to obscured is really obvious. Might help you out, I never thought of it till I saw someone mention it. Cheers!

Aaron said: So, there was a thread a while back, I think in the mentor forum, talking about these kinds of things. (So there's your plug for getting a mentor subscription! =D ) Here's some strategies you can use: Dead of Night: Give them their personal light sources, add light sources in the interior as makes sense, and viola! Morning: Set up light sources that have some very large radius, say 1000, but are immediately dim. Put them in enough places to illuminate everything. probably one for each corner of the map, and perhaps some for interior outdoor spaces such as between buildings. This will give the illusion of dim lighting (well, it will actually be dim, so no illusion I suppose!). High Noon: Take those light sources from 2) and take the dim off. Moon Lit Night: Make the radius of their personal light sources about 4 times larger, but with dim at the same point. They still get the same level of bright light, but they get an enhanced dim radius that the moonlight lets them see into. Hope that helps! For #2 what should the dim be? Thanks, Patrick Von Raven

Patrick: 0 causes the light to be all dim.